


he will make you rue the day

by macabre



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-13
Updated: 2012-11-13
Packaged: 2017-11-18 14:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre/pseuds/macabre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond's clock runs out; fortunately, Q can orchestrate resurrection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	he will make you rue the day

There is set amount of hours before an agent is considered collateral damage; Bond knows this as well as the rest, and he can see them all now sitting in their offices at headquarters and watching the clock, about ready to call it like a time of death in a hospital. 

Oh well, he thinks. He still has his capsule. All he thinks about is Silva’s face, and the irreversible damage it did to him. Death wasn’t so merciful to him, and they are of a similar breed from a similar era. Bond’s capsule is probably no different than his was. Will he one of the lucky, or unlucky ones?

There’s no way to be sure, so he waits until he knows enough time has passed that they will no longer be looking for him. Then he waits some more. His captors seem in no hurry to end his misery, coming back hourly to break him, so Bond thinks on his sins. He does. And the time comes for him to pray, but he doesn’t, so instead he bites as hard as possible. 

There’s blood in his mouth, so much he’s already gagging, but he swallows because he has to. Then a guard comes and slaps him so hard he can’t help but redecorate the walls red. Well then. 

He doesn’t die, but his hands are tied so he can’t feel his face to see if part is missing. He doesn’t think so. Death neglects him as usual. 

Then it’s been long enough that he looses time; wakes up and doesn’t know when he fell out of consciousness. It’s the hunger; he is starving to death, and all his muscles disappear when his body needs to eat them. There’s not much left now. Not much time at all. 

Then he barely lifts an eyelid and notices one of his guards landing heavily on top of him, knife stuck in one side and a fresh bullet hole in the other. Bond grunts, but it feels like his last breath. 

Next time he comes to he’s in a helicopter, then the next time he’s in the back of a covert ambulance. Then, if he had to guess some several days later, he briefly finds himself in a sterile, white room. Then in another room, this one less white and more brick. Somewhere in headquarters, then. 

“How do you feel?” The doctors ask.

“Mostly dead.”

“What happened?” M wants to know. 

“I think I must have died on you again. So sorry.”

His tongue feels alternatively like lead, then cotton. He’s not sure if it is side effects of the drugs they’re giving him now, or the failed capsule plan. 

“Tell me, am I still devilishly handsome?” He asks M, who despite his schedule, seems to keep up with him. 

“I think with time and a bath you’ll give even me a run for the money.” M’s sense of humor is improving with time and acquaintance, Bond decides. 

It’s not until he can stay conscious for most the day that he asks the bigger questions. “How did you find me?”

“Happy coincidence, mostly on Q’s part,” M says without glancing up from his morning paper. 

“Why were you still looking for me?”

“We weren’t. Q was.” 

“Happy coincidence, indeed.”

“We had you declared dead. Again.” He folds the newspaper over his crossed knee. “Fortunately for you, Q was nearly useless for several weeks trying to pinpoint your location after we called off the active search. He put all his business and pleasure hours into the search.”

Whatever test M is giving him, Bond isn’t sure if he’s passing or not. He’s too tired to care much. M stares at him; Bond stares back. “Good lad.”

“The best,” M says, standing. “He hasn’t been to see you?”

“No. Not while I’ve been conscious, at least.”

M nods. “He’s around. Working on our next move, again. Finally.” 

“Well don’t go easy on him.”

“You never do.” 

Bond leaves his little room in a new suit that’s been laid out for him by a nurse. He supposes that’s his clue to get out, that he’s passed their health inspections. He’s put weight back on, but not enough. He fatigues easily; he needs a longer break. He may not get one. 

There are certain areas of headquarters always full of people, and others almost always deserted. It didn’t take him long to find both. There are people like Moneypenny who stop him along the way, but he finds a back room, wedged into a corner where the bricks stay constantly chilled and if there’s still a rat to be found, it would be here. Bond supposes it has its own charms: its secluded nature, for one. 

“Word has it you haven’t been able to keep your eyes off me. Metaphorically speaking, of course, given your absence since I’ve returned.”

“007.” Q doesn’t turn to look at him, instead all Bond has to look at is his ridiculous and perpetual bed head to go with his ugly sweater, the collar of the shirt underneath sticking up on one side. His voice is even, carefully neutral.

As if he could bluff a world-class liar. 

“Where’s my homecoming welcome?” He steps a little closer; besides the disheveled appearance, from his profile Bond sees only dark circles and pallor to shock a ghost. 

“I’m working, Bond.” Indeed, he’s typing furiously, the walls lit up in codes and things Bond doesn’t particularly care to understand, but he sees the tremor in the hands. The mistakes he tries to cover when he mistypes something. The shrinking in the shoulders. 

“You wanted me, here I am.” He’s always left on shaky ground with Q, this push and pull they have. Bond would give Q what he wanted, if he would just take it. Q isn’t used to having risk, not physical risk anyway. He looks away when Bond watches, moves to the other side of rooms when he walks in. 

“I performed my duty in bringing you back to service,” Q says, fingers hammering keys rather than working them. 

“You were the only one then.”

Q’s fingers finally stop, all at once, as if someone pressed pause. He doesn’t blink, or move any muscle. “Damn you,” he says quietly. “Would you rather I have given up? Left you with those men? What did they do? What kind of torture did they devise to break the great James Bond?”

He turns slowly in his seat, looking at him for the first time. Has he been crying recently? Bond can’t be sure. 

“Guns, knives,” Q breaths, “a hot poker?” 

His eyes meander from place to place on Bond’s body; they come to rest on his left side, presumably because he’s noticed where Bond puts his weight. Clever boy. 

“All before teatime.” 

Q looks at him awhile longer, not at his face, but still searching for signs of weakness, of the damage. Then he turns back to his computer, but his hands stay still, folded in his lap. 

“I will never understand how you take orders. The order to stand in front of a bullet when it comes to it.” The codes in front of them are still moving, changing without any prompt from Q. Bond wonders what he’s working on now. A permanent locator to implant under his skin, probably. 

“That’s why you stay at home in your pajamas.” Bond teases, always teases. Steps closer to the man’s side. 

“Damn you.” Q’s eyes hide in the reflection of the massive computer screen in his glasses. “Damn you.”

“This is what I signed up for. Not all of us care to sit behind desks.” Sticking his hands in his pockets, he leans forward over the man’s shoulder. 

“It’s a young man’s game, Bond.” 

“You recommend I retire?” He smiles, leaning forward to breath in his hair. Even without contact, he almost feels the shiver beneath him. “What would you do with me if you had me all to yourself, all day long?”

“Tie you to the bed, but I know how much you’d enjoy that.” There’s only so much they’ve had together, and so much more between them. Bond knows Q worries, worries that they won’t have any adequate time. Bond worries too. 

“We could arrange something.” He kisses Q’s temple, feels a shy grip clutch at the side of his jacket. 

“You’ll come home with me?”

“Yes.” They don’t go home with each other; they meet in rooms like this or in a car or a clandestine café. Q never asked, until now, and Bond never pushed. He waited for the pull. It’s here.

“You’ll stay.”

“For now. There will always be missions.” Bond expects him to argue further; this is a conversation they hover around. Is it what keeps Q from pulling? A doomed romance deserves thought. Q doesn’t like the risk; he evaluates risk. 

Instead Q nods, closing his laptop and standing. “And I’ll always bring you home.”

“You’d better.”

They won’t touch each other until they’re locked behind Q’s doors, but the younger man keeps a grip on the other’s suit as they tunnel their way out of the maze underground. Q’s breathing is shallow, but accelerated. Eyes glassy. Bond moves them from headquarters to the apartment he knows is just a short walk away.

The door behind them just barely clicks before Bond kisses him, and Q’s knees buckle. 

“I wasn’t sure I’d find you this time,” he cries, face red, twisted into a kind of agony Bond doesn’t know. He doesn’t know the waiting, the searching, the hoping. Q is the best of him because he can still hope. 

“But you did.” Bond pulls him up by the front of his shirt and tosses him into his arms. “You did.”

There’s no room for comfort between them, only reality, and the push and pull between. Bond cradles Q’s head. 

“I may point out we’re wasting valuable time in which you could be tying me to the bed.”

He at least gets a snort in response, but Q’s still hiding from him, lifting his face from Bond’s front and turning away before Bond can really look at him. 

“Damn you for disappearing. And damn me for caring.” 

Bond’s had enough; he yanks at Q’s hand, pulling him back into his arms. Forces him to look up. 

“Bring me home. Bring me home and make me stay.”

Shaking his head, Q threads his fingers in between the buttons of his shirt. “You’ll hate me.”

“I’ll learn to live with it.” After all, there’s always been push and pull in Bond’s life. It’s never been his job to distinguish right or wrong; that was the men and women above him who sent the orders who decided that. Bond balances, he adapts. He pushes, and pulls. 

He gives, too.


End file.
